


until you're resting here with me

by upallnightstrungtight



Category: Super Junior
Genre: BDSM mention, Established Relationship, M/M, Polyamory, post-leaving SM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 20:11:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17250620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upallnightstrungtight/pseuds/upallnightstrungtight
Summary: No matter how sad it may be, some things get easier like this. Like always, Ryeowook decides when they’ll talk about it, and Henry willingly follows his lead.





	until you're resting here with me

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to an amazing friend for looking this over!!!
> 
> I was really insecure about posting this, but I decided, like the titular song, _oh I am what I am, I'll do what I want_

“There’re some advantages to not working together anymore, you know,” Ryeowook says one evening as he wiped down the cutting board after they finished their early dinner, eyes focused on it, maybe embarrassed to bring it up. He’s half inaudible over the sound of the dishwasher running. (That dishwasher is Henry’s inanimate true love, if there is such a thing.)

It’s really nice of him to work around Henry’s ungodly early flight. On Henry’s part, it takes his mind a couple of seconds to catch up to the sudden change of topic - not to mention the fact that the cutting board was _already clean._ As in, before they sat down. _Okay, guess we’re talking about this now. That’s... good? Probably good._ _Hopefully._

“Hm?” A questioning sound is all he answers with. He reassures himself that if it was that bad, the whole thing would be going way differently - as in not nice or pleasant. A reminder that he _knows_ Ryeowook, which means he won’t be blindsided after over a decade.

“I mean... No Chinese lessons, for one thing.”

His surprise makes a snorting laugh come out, incredulous that _that’s_ Ryeowook’s idea of a benefit. “Aw, babe, were they really that bad? You tried so hard.” He’s doing his best to look sympathetic, he really is. (There’s no way it’s working. This much info alone is years worth of teasing ammo.)

The cutting board screeches faintly when Ryeowook pushes it across the counter to rest back against the far wall. “I’ve had enough to last me a thousand years,” he says with that adorable prissy expression of his. “Even your cute face couldn’t drag me to another one of those.” He stretches briefly and rolls his head this way and that, nicely emphasizing his neck and collarbones.

_Mm._ “Not even a private lesson?”

“Shut up,” Ryeowook says with a laugh. “Zhou Mi-hyung’s the only one who ever taught me the good stuff anyway.”

Rolling his eyes, Henry wipes his suddenly damp palms on his pants. “Yeah, ‘cause he didn’t wanna go out to pick up guys by himself, and the only other native Chinese speaker we had was like the third straightest member in the entire group.”

Ryeowook crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “How do you even have the straight ones ranked? Did you try to hit on them or something?”

“What? No! I just _know_ , like, I can tell.”

“Suuuure. Okay.” He shakes his head, a fond half-smile bringing out his dimple. “Also, it’s not my problem anymore when you get distracted,” he says, his tongue poking out of his mouth the tiniest bit, his nose scrunching with affection. “I don’t have to keep you on track at events.”

“Oh yeah? Um, well, _I_ don’t have to deal with your weird manager problems! So there.” Henry shoots back with a mock-haughty lift of his chin.

They laugh together, and it’s enough. Being enough is a wonderful feeling.

Ryeowook sighs wistfully. “You did make all the plane rides a lot nicer, though. I miss that, now that we’re back in the thick of it.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Though his eyes still hold lingering sadness, Ryeowook’s expression is otherwise skeptical. “Don’t you just fall asleep like always?”

“Not as much as I used to... It’s not as easy without having you nearby,” Henry tells him with a wistful quirk pulling down the corner of his mouth. He purposely avoids dwelling on his own habitual _where are you_ glances around the stage and the airport and TV sets, or the occasional spark of muscle memory that he has to resist, when he’s so tired he can’t think straight, to turn to someone who’s not there, play off as ordinary, as though he didn’t just trip over the missing stair of another voice that didn’t come through.

_Won’t_ come through. Hopefully, once it hits the five year mark, it’ll stop. That’s what he’s holding out for.

Short though the ensuing silence is, the heavy mood eats away at him; the sadness returns full force to Ryeowook’s face. “But it’s okay! That just means I talk to my fans more. Everyone likes that a lot.” It lifts somewhat, but not all the way. “Aw, come on, you were _just_ saying about all the things you don’t have to deal with anymore.”

Right there, the exasperated adoration, that’s what he wanted. “You really are a handful sometimes, you know,” Ryeowook says, shaking his head slowly.

Henry can only laugh. “Look who’s talking!” He pushes a bit at Ryeowook’s shoulder, but rather than a cute expression of annoyance, the other man only shrugs in a sort of mild acceptance. That won’t do. To get more of a reaction, Henry swoops down to press the briefest kiss to the side of his neck. Ryeowook's low, pleased hum and sultry gaze, his eyelids sinking to half mast for just a moment of a considering, hungry look, sate that desire quite nicely.

“Hm, I wonder...” After quickly turning around, Ryeowook pulls out some whiskey and a shotglass out of nowhere, which really means hidden in the back of one of the cupboards, forgotten between the last harried days before enlistment on one side and long bouts of work and travel on the other. Some spice bottles rattle ominously from being disturbed along the way, but ultimately settle where they should be. “Oh, it’s almost empty. Is it because of one of your parties with your friends?” He says with a wry grin.

So Henry sticks out his tongue. “If you’re complaining, you shouldn’t have left it here.”

An approving laugh is Ryeowook’s only response. He deftly pours himself a shot from the quarter-full bottle that remains, tips the bottle itself forward in offering. “No thanks, you know I get red and itchy when I drink,” Henry laments. The other man chuckles and raises his eyebrows meaningfully. “Okay, a little sip of yours, then.”

Holding the shotglass to Henry’s lips, Ryeowook practically tips it into his mouth. “You get handsy, too.” He smirks, and his voice pitches lower when he adds, “I didn’t forget.”

The heat hitting sharp in his gut isn’t from the alcohol. Fuck - it doesn’t make any sense, never has - no one makes him want to _submit_ the way the man standing before him does. Effortlessly. And if Ryeowook’s intentions weren’t clear before, diverging from their routine of cuddling on the couch and maybe dozing off there while that week’s playlist (or month’s, if it’s a busy enough month with boring enough music) plays on without them, they’re sure as hell clear now.

With that, the dance will begin, starting on tiptoes, soft and wary steps, winding their way through the past and present, reminding each other what they have until one of them makes a move to get what they both want. Every meeting is an open question - are you still the same? Do you still want me? How can I make you happy?

Under it all, he asks, _Do you have the space open to let me in? Do you still love me?_

Placing his hand over Ryeowook’s where it’s trailed down to his chest, Henry’s heart swells with the knowledge that for him, the answer is always _yes, yes, yes_ \- that the beauty staring up at him with glittering eyes full of love and promise keeps telling him that in a thousand ways, again and again. And so he says yes, too, by joining in the dance. He smiles softly.

“That’s not the only thing you haven’t forgotten,” he offers with a slow blink, accompanied by the quiet thump of percussion wafting in from the other room.

“True,” Ryeowook says. He steps back, lets his arms fall to his sides. Without a moment of rest, his hands go into his pockets, his thumbs sticking out, only serving to emphasize the way his jeans cling to his legs, the tantalizing dip of his waistband pulled lower still to offer a glimpse of the smooth skin of his hips. Henry's fingers itch to have those hips back in his grasp.

“I remember how hard you were trying to be smooth when you were first asking me out.”

An exasperated groan leaves Henry’s throat of its own accord. “Why do you have to keep reminding me of that? It took me _three **years**_ to work up to that!”

“Because you were so _cute_ ,” Ryeowook says, so fondly that it almost hurts. He looks off to the side, staring out the window for a second. “It was hard to be sure what you meant, at first.” More quietly, he adds, “You might not have known quite what you were saying. I could’ve scared you off or hurt you. Who would look after you then?”

Of course, it’s impossible to forget - the words Henry had had available to him, he didn’t understand the difference in usage and implications, not knowing what he didn’t know and no one could explain to him anyway. He got frustrated that it wasn’t coming across right, that no matter what he said, his intentions weren’t getting through, before giving up and interlacing their fingers and looking at Ryeowook sadly, hopefully, desperate that his meaning might somehow come across.

But what he says is, “Eh, I went with what works in the end: body language.” He waggles his eyebrows for good measure. Ryeowook giggles and ducks his head for a moment.

When he looks back up, teasing grin firmly in place, he fires back, “Yeah, you looked so sad that I went ahead and dated you.”

Henry splutters helplessly. “That’s- I’m- Don’t- _Hyung!_ ” He flicks his hands out sharply, palm up, and shakes them emphatically in time with his words. “You can’t say it like that!” He crosses his arms and _tries_ to glare to show his displeasure, but when has that ever been effective on the man currently standing in his kitchen?

Nope, doesn’t work one bit. Ryeowook just pinches his cheek. “You make such a funny face!”

But then, after a second of gears visibly turning, his hand dropping away, his mouth falls open and Henry just _knows_ it’s about to get worse - especially after a gasp filled with delighted surprise.

“Oh my god, is _that_ why you learned all those bad pickup lines back then?”

Yeah, it got worse. Hiding his face for a second, Henry whines, “Noooo! It wasn’t for _that_.” Once he’s given himself that second, he fights it back with a show of confidence, plastering on a smirk, squaring his shoulders. “I like flirting with other people besides you, you know.”

Ryeowook hums and gives him the elevator eyes. “Some things _are_ too good not to share.”

Now _that_ brings back some fond memories of the early days of their relationship. Sharing... _that’s_ a lot of fun, right there. Being shared, more like.

Still, it’s a rare thing; usually, when they want to be together, bringing in anyone else is too complicated, and often not what either of them want, the longer they’re apart. Long past the whirlwind of being new and secret to each other, of needing to talk or see the other all the time, heady and fun though it was, they’re pretty independent, as far as romantic relationships go. When they come back together, they fit just as well as ever, those times that they do meet.

Works out great, except for the day or two that comes around every few months like clockwork; that’s how long Henry’s gripped by the fear that it means they’ll drift apart for good. Or the stretches where he’s alone, between beds and couches he has the pleasure of sharing, when the very notion weighs on his chest like a ton of bricks.

Above all else, he can’t stand the thought of losing yet another home.

Something must’ve shown on his face, or alarmed Ryeowook, because he finds himself being squeezed in a hug tight enough to feel desperate. He returns it with equal force, the buttons of his shirt digging into his skin between them.

“You okay?” Ryeowook asks into his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Henry croaks out, and doesn’t let go.

Sometimes, not a lot but every now and then, he comes home exhausted and can’t stop rearranging his pillows because none of the configurations he puts them in feels comfortable, and that’s when his brain decides to remind him that it’s possible that Ryeowook’ll choose to end the good thing they’ve got going, and knows exactly which man he’d pick to settle down with, the way most people do - tall, handsome, kind, successful. He can avoid thinking the name, but he can’t forget having experienced the warm, sincere comfort of his embrace exactly once, in the snow after the bout in icy waters, his own mild feelings purely platonic but nonetheless imbued with the visceral understanding of why Ryeowook eagerly returned that particular confession, given that he’s brushed off almost all the rest. He doesn't know what to do with that knowledge, but there it is, sitting lead-heavy in his guts.

(They used to laugh about those confessions together. They don’t anymore. Not for a long time now.)

“I know I’m talking about this change lightly, but, it’s okay that it’s difficult, too.” Though that’s not what caused it, it’s enough that Ryeowook cards his fingers through Henry’s hair and sighs, enough that he worries and makes this much clear. “...I know it’s better for you. I miss you sometimes, but I know that, okay?”

With a pleased hum, Henry pushes his head into Ryeowook’s palm; he gets the indulgent laugh he was after, the one that’s only his when he does exactly that.

“Ah, you’re really too cute,” Ryeowook says.

Since Henry knows that he doesn’t mean anything like ‘so I can’t see you as sexy or otherwise attractive’, he lets it go. He’s learned better. So he just smiles cheekily, confident that the other likes that, too.

The pressure on his scalp is just right, so _good_ , like they’ve got a direct line between their brains that’s sending out instructions on exactly how to run blunt-nailed fingertips through the hair at the back of his head, and it keeps going and going and going, long after he’s sure anyone else would’ve given up and stopped. God, he’s so happy right now that it almost hurts. _I can’t believe you love me this much. I wasn’t sure anyone could._ The twinge of real, deep pain from the old wound of being let go of so easily long ago, by the one person the young, naive him never thought would do that, is just a little milder than the time before. Bit by bit, one hug and two reassurances at a time, the warmth of healing has pulled its edges closer together.

At some point, they let go; Ryeowook meanders away from him to pick up stray clothes and empty snack bags and delivery boxes. Endearing is the only word to describe it.

Or maybe touching is more like it, that the older man knows how the whirlwind of creative frenzy goes and does this with a minimum of halfhearted clucking about it.

Besotted smile overtaking over his face, Henry flops himself down on the couch after all, watching the other work. His eyes are riveted to Ryeowook’s delicate fingers; he wants to feel them on his body, burning up every inch they touch, lay claim to. Instead, he brings himself up to a crouch, his weight half on the plush arm of the sofa. “You know what else I miss, though? How easy it was to have breakfast with you, sometimes. Or just see you in the mornings - you're adorable when you’re all sleepy and mussed up like that, you know.”

Ryeowook snorts. “Whatever you say. For me, I liked getting you into the shower,” he shoots Henry an absolutely filthy smirk, eyes burning, causing an uncharacteristic blush for the hapless recipient, “but... I think it’s better that we’re not stuck together so much that we get on each other’s nerves. You remember that huge fight we had a few years ago?”

Henry winces. “How could I forget?” Any time that’s brought up, he craves reconnection instantly, deeply, and this time is no exception. Leaping up from the couch, he wraps his arms around Ryeowook from behind, gently swaying them both. “But, y’know, we got through it quick.”

Pushing back further into his embrace, Ryeowook hums, half agreement, half contentment. Whatever had been gathered up is dropped onto the coffee table, rustling and creaking.

Still, there’s hesitation, a half-second delay between each movement Ryeowook makes towards him. Can Henry suss out what it is, he wonders? Or should- is it better to leave it alone?

Ryeowook’s shoulders slump into his hold first, then his upper back, and finally, their sock-clad feet share warmth side by side. “I really, _really_ miss you sometimes,” he says, as if it’s nothing, as if he didn’t stiffen up seconds ago. “And I don’t think you missed me all that much while I was enlisted.”

“Hey! I cut my hair **way** short for you!” Henry insistently reminds him. Really, the nerve of saying such a thing!

A bark of laughter is all he gets for his trouble. “Alright, alright. That _was_ really sweet. You timed it well, too.” Ryeowook sighs. “Sorry. I shouldn’t think like that. I know you’re so busy nowadays.”

“That’s right. It’s not ‘cause I don’t wanna see you, or miss your shows, or anything like that,” Henry reassures him, nuzzling into the top of his head where his intoxicating scent is strongest. Nothing else calms him so well. “You’re still an important part of my life,” he says, just in case reassurance works backwards, too, works on himself at least as well. Their togetherness has never had a formal name. Maybe it never will.

Ryeowook tips his head back; Henry twists them around to oblige him with the soft, slow kiss he’s clearly angling for. He feels everything at once, soothed and keyed up, sad and happy and longing for something he can’t place.

“Thank you,” Ryeowook whispers when they part. Satisfied, Henry hums in acknowledgement.

A different desire rises up in him now - another in a series of visions showing the potential fraying of their connection. He asks, “This is what you wanted for me, right?”

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

And realizes, when Ryeowook looks back at him confused, that he left the topic unclear in context. “You were always supporting me to be successful.” Now, he rubs his cheek against Ryeowook’s, unable to help the smile that steals over his face all the while. He teases the other man by asking in a sing-song voice, “Did you forget that meant I’d be busy?”

There’s a bigger benefit, is the thing, one that has yet to be brought up. Their interactions have grown easier, softer, both more gentle and enthusiastic. And their careers grew, are growing, in different directions, too - much less of the tension of being both coworkers and competitors at once.

But that’s one of those things that’s too hard to put into words for now.

With a snort, the other man returns the affectionate cheek rub, the starting scratch of stubble faintly pleasant. His sometimes-lover is a wonderland of sensation; it’s easy to forget when they’re apart for so long at a time. “Of course I didn’t,” Ryeowook says. As he speaks, his voice grows rougher, something tightening.

Whatever it is, though... Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait. If that means they’ll process it in blips in the vulnerability of the bedroom, so be it. There’s still something else that’s best said in person, so it has to be right now.

“You get- why I had to leave, right?” Henry’s the one who sounds choked up now, the same way he always hopes he’ll stay calm and collected and then can’t manage it around the one person he most wants to impress.

Ryeowook’s arms squeeze over his, rest there. He doesn’t turn to look when he says, “You already couldn’t get what you need, right?” With a mere four steps, there’s a distance between them that’s almost cold. The floor is, apparently, riveting at the moment. They both move to have something solid against their backs, though not each other; Henry walks over to lean back against the counter, one ankle over the other, mind blank as the faint rumble of the dishwasher moves through him, while Ryeowook crosses his arms and lets the dining table look like it’s bearing his weight. Finally, he adds, “And then it only got worse, I bet.”

Henry chances looking up, only to find Ryeowook refusing to meet his eyes. He forges on ahead anyway. “Once you weren’t there to help...” He looks down again, shrugs one shoulder. He hates that they both know exactly what he means.

What’s worse is that no matter how bad he realizes that sounds, afterwards, Ryeowook rushes back in, comes _warmclose_ to him, hand landing on top of his at the counter’s edge, squeezing as their fingers curled together. “I’m sorry.”

A couple of shakes of his head will have to stand in for all the things that Henry doesn’t want to say. _I know you didn’t have a choice not to leave. You did what you could. It’s not your fault it didn’t work. Or that I’m bad at telling you, sometimes. Bad at making you feel better, bad at finding the right words to say, bad at making you want to come back to me._

In his manufactured worry, he failed to notice that Ryeowook’s warmth has left him entirely. That they’re standing far apart again, not of his doing, and the other looks pensive and closed off, and Henry can’t tell if he’s ruined his last chance for weeks, if not months.

Fuck. His thoughts are running away from him. If he doesn’t change the subject soon, the room’ll run out of air. He levers himself up off the counter he was leaning on, grasping at the nearest, newest topic to regain his balance.

“I watched your video. That first one...” Henry smirks. _Is it enough?_ thrums underneath. “Some of those moves in front of the green screen looked a _little_ familiar.”

“Hey! Don’t you start!” It works like a charm. Ryeowook pokes him in the chest, his mouth screwed up mock-indignant, his eyes narrowing into an illusion of irritation. (Henry loves that he’s back in his space so intimately.) “Who do you think taught you everything about being cute, huh?”

Tapping his chin with his second knuckle, Henry looks off to the side, pretending to think. “Hmmm. Sungmin-hyung?”

Ryeowook lightly thwaps his chest with the back of his hand. “Oh shut up.” They both laugh softly, warm with memory.

“You look so much more, um, confident now, though.” A quick bite of his lip conveys all Henry needs to, after so many years. “Looks good. I like it.”

“That right?” As the low, playful tone lingers in the air, Ryeowook steps entirely into his space. His hands almost absentmindedly trail down Henry’s sides to rest on his hips. _Almost._ He lets his gaze lower and then rise again in the way of flirting. “You wanna show me how much you like it?”

Henry’s eyes widen of their own accord. He swallows hard, nods once. “Yeah,” he finally manages to say. Maybe he doesn’t need to say it out loud, but he knows his partner needs to hear it all the same, that this step must be sure. They’ve long since learned to work with and around each other in the small waves of reassurance drifting onto the shore.

So slowly, Ryeowook licks his lips, silent messages passing between them tightening Henry’s chest with anticipation. Then, the older man’s gaze slips down to his mouth. That show of desire burns so good, so quickly, that he’s left thoroughly unprepared for what he hears next. “I have the day off tomorrow,” he says, and means _you can do anything you want to me._

“Fuck,” Henry groans, unable to keep from kissing him a moment longer.

His lover’s lips are so soft, his mouth tasting of the remnants of sticky-sweet sauce when their tongues push against each other, hot and slick and lighting an unquenchable fire beneath his skin.

Then Ryeowook pulls back, lightly scrapes his teeth down the column of Henry’s neck in question; Henry squeezes his wrists tightly in answer. Ryeowook whimpers. (Brazen, just for him.) In the first language they ever really shared, the negotiations have been completed for the time being, the first of them without a single word of it spoken into the air.

Excitement sings anew in Henry’s blood. He will enjoy the pin, flexing his newly-regained strength to both give and take pleasurable sensation, throbbing faintly with the echo of sliding into his lover at that delicious angle that hits just right, the one their bodies only know in unison. Ryeowook will light up every nerve ending with as close to a bite as he can get away with, grasping with his teeth at whatever comes in reach, arching up wild and demanding more, always more.

He’s not quite sure, but Henry thinks he shivers.

Always, reunion is sweet. They find each other again, learn each other again, revel in each other again. When they lay panting beside each other, when Ryeowook turns onto his stomach for Henry to clean him off with a warm wet washcloth, when they slot together again so neither of their arms will go numb, a certain knowledge hangs between them. It is this: that wherever they go, whatever they do with others, there are some things that only the two of them will ever share. And that means, again and again, that wherever they go, there’s always a home to come back to.

“You’re really okay that I have to be up at four tomorrow morning for my flight?” Henry murmurs, squeezing just that little bit tighter in case the answer is no, ready as he can be if this is where they part until time unknown.

Ryeowook only whispers back, “Worth it.”


End file.
